Everyone applauded again. A few yelled, “Way to go, Mr. Lieberman.” Things like that.

“The American champion,” continued Sonny, “is going to fight a Swede who happens to be the heavyweight champion of Europe for the heavyweight championship of the world. We’re going to make this fight America versus Europe.”

“And the rest of the world,” yelled someone.

“Yes,” said Sonny, smiling victoriously and pointing a finger at the beatified employee, “and the rest of the world. It’s going to be the best thing that’s happened to the fight game since Dempsey fought Carpentier. Onward and upward!”

Everyone cheered.

Some yelled, “Onward and upward.”

“Maybe I’ll marry Sonny Lieberman,” mean Billie Berry, the self-styled vampette, told a perpetually shattered Billy Constable.

The Swedish heavyweight champion was described as “big as a house and strong as an ox” in the sports pages of the New York Daily News. What the News didn’t say was that the Swede was also a world-class playboy and cocksman who was absolutely incapable of keeping his fly zipped up.

The other information the newspapers failed to mention was that most of the money Sonny Lieberman needed to buy the rights to the fight—and it was a considerable amount of additional money—came from his new “silent” partner, Giuseppe “The Chop” Sanseli.

Donna Durch’s Coke-bottle eyeglasses lay on the end of her nose, her stare fixed on some imaginary spot on the ceiling. Some spit had dribbled down the side of her lifeless mouth. She sat dead in the family lawyer’s armchair, a thick, important-looking maroon affair the lawyer had waited six months to get.

“God Almighty,” moaned the very superstitious and very depressed lawyer, “how many more Durch heart attacks do I have to go through in my office? First the mother jinxes my gold desk set and desk and now the daughter-in-law throws a kibosh on my brand-new armchair.”

While EMS attendants loaded Donna’s corpse into their ambulance, her husband, Colin Durch, stood on his tiptoes among the semicircle of gawkers, trying to see what was going on with his dead wife. While standing there, Colin fully realized the awful truth of everything that had just transpired, suffered a paralyzing stroke, and fell to the pavement.

The EMS attendants slid his paralyzed body into the ambulance next to his dead wife.

When Arthur Durch heard the news of his brother’s stroke and his sister-in-law’s death, he was shocked beyond belief. Not by the two catastrophes but rather by the cause of their catastrophes: the attorney’s announcement that his mother had left all her riches to him. That’s what shocked Arthur Durch. As soon as his stupefied state wore off, Arthur began hopping and jumping about his seedy Bensonhurst apartment, whooping and yelping like a crazy fool. It was as if Arthur had just won the lottery. As a matter of fact, it was better than winning the lottery. Arthur didn’t have to pay half to get the whole pot quickly.